nature shudders at; then despise me and my principles if I recoil.
The union of marriage demands reciprocal,

unequivocal, and unbounded confidence; for how can we pretend to love those whom we cannot trust? The man who is unworthy this unbounded confidence is most unworthy to be a husband; and it were even better he should shew his bad qualities, by basely and dishonestly deserting her who had committed herself body and soul to his honour, than that such qualities should discover themselves after marriage. There is no disgrace can equal the torment of such an alliance.
I grant it.
You have attained that noble courage which dares to question the most received doctrines, and bring them to the test of truth. Who better than you can appreciate the falsehood and the force

of the prejudices of opinion? Yet are you sure, madam, that even you are superior to them all?
Far otherwise. Would I were! I am much too ignorant for such high such enviable perfection.
But is it not possible that some of the most common, and if I dared I should say the most narrow, the most self-evident of these prejudices may sway and terrify you from the plain path of equity? Dare you look the world's unjust contumelies stedfastly in the face? Dare you answer for yourself that you will not shudder at the performance of what you cannot but acknowledge, nay have acknowledged to be an act of duty?
I confess your preparation is alarming, and makes me half suspect myself,

half desirous to retract all I have thought, all I have asserted! Yet I think I dare do whatever justice can require.
You think—?
Once more bring me to the proof. I feel a conscious [Again you make me a braggart.] a virtuous certainty.
In opposition to the whole world, its prepossessions, reproofs, revilings, persecutions, and contempt?
The picture is terrifying, but ought not to be, and I answer yes; in opposition to and in defiance of them all.
Then—You are my wife!
How?
Be firm! Start not from the truth! You are my wife! Ask yourself the meaning of the word. Can set forms and ceremonies unite mind to mind?

And if not they, what else? What but community of sentiments, similarity of principles, reciprocal sympathies, and an equal ardour for and love of truth? Can it be denied?
It cannot.
You are my wife, and I have a right to the privileges of a husband!
A right?
An absolute, an indefeasible right!
You go too fast!
They are your own